Since the beginning of the seventies, demographic statistics show a manifest increase in alternative forms of living and types of families. While the traditional pattern of family development is clearly on the decrease, partnership and parenthood - according to the authors - still remain central elements in an individual's Organization of his or her life. The socializing function of the family, also in its alternative forms, is basically not in danger. It is exactly the adherence to principles of the bourgeois ideal of the family in our society and the accompanying structural, political, and eco¬nomic conditions of family life that contribute much to what is interpreted as the crisis of the family.In this Situation, the educational institutions, too, are required to help overcome the present contradictions. (DIPF/Orig.)